Holden posted it below, but I’m citing it again because it’s so crucial. It’s changing by the hour, so keep up, but for now this is what we’ve got. Jim Brady, executive editor of Washingtonpost.com, said Domenech was hired because “we were completely unrepresented by a social conservative voice.” He said his goal “is to provide voices from as many perspectives as possible” and that Domenech is not intended to balance anyone in particular on his staff. Domenech is “controversial” and the fact that liberals object to his hiring “shouldn’t really be a shock to anybody,” Brady said. And here’s … Continue reading The Post’s Defense

From Holden: OK, this is simply bizarre. But is it harder to believe than The Ballad of Jeff Guckert? From Wayne Madsen: White House insiders report that an influential group of extreme right-wing gay Latino power brokers has been given almost total control over U.S. foreign and business policy decisions affecting Latin America. A number of members of the Young Hispanic Republican Association report that they have been sexually preyed upon by members of the influential Latino power brokers after accepting administration appointments, including positions on the White House staff. The gay Latino group, led by an individual nicknamed “El … Continue reading Right-Wing Gay Latinos Invade The White House

From Holden: Jeebus. What is to become of this country? The family of a Pakistani journalist kidnapped in December said Thursday that they believe he could be in U.S. custody. Hayatullah Khan was abducted at gunpoint in the volatile North Waziristan tribal region Dec. 5 by armed, masked men whom a witness at the time described as dressed like fighters from the ousted Taliban regime of Afghanistan. But Ihsanullah Khan, the victim’s brother, said that senior officials from Pakistan’s intelligence agencies had told the family that Hayatullah was now beyond their jurisdiction. “We were told a few days ago that … Continue reading So, We’re Kidnapping Journalists Now

Here: Late Thursday evening, several widely-read internet weblogs reported that a former College student plagiarized at least two articles while he worked as a writer for The Flat Hat. According to the websites Daily Kos and Atrios, phrases and full sentances of these articles were similar, and in some cases identical, to those of other authors. Ben Domenech, a student who enrolled in the College in 1999, is currently a blogger with Washingtonpost.com. While Domenech deserves the benefit of the doubt until all of the facts are known, if true, his actions would be deeply offensive to us as journalists … Continue reading Benny’s Old Paper Smacks Him Down

From Holden: Howard Hurtz: Late yesterday, the liberal Web sites Daily Kos and Atrios posted examples of what appeared to be instances of plagiarism from Domenech’s writing at the William & Mary student paper. Three sentences of a 1999 Domenech review of a Martin Scorsese film were identical to a review in Salon magazine, and several sentences in Domenech’s piece on a James Bond movie closely resembled one in the Internet Movie Database. Domenech said he needed to research the examples but that he never used material without attribution and had complained about a college editor improperly adding language to … Continue reading Plagiarism? It’s The Editor’s Fault

From Holden: Freeance and Peance ain’t what it used to be. Senior Muslim clerics demanded Thursday that an Afghan man on trial for converting from Islam to Christianity be executed. [snip] “Rejecting Islam is insulting God,” said cleric Abdul Raoulf. “We will not allow God to be humiliated – this man must die,” said Raoulf, who is considered a moderate. [snip]”He is not crazy,” said Hamidullah, chief cleric at Haji Yacob Mosque. “He went in front of the media and confessed to being a Christian. The government is scared of the international community. But the people will kill him if … Continue reading Oh, The Joys Of Democracy

Or, more technically, Eichmann, according to Red State: It was Hannah Arendt who introduced us to the banality of evil. There was more to this thing called “evil” than grainy newsreel footage of delirious chanting of “Sieg Heil” or the “Internationale.” Rage and hatred were not the first steps toward convincing seemingly normal people to go along with totalitarianism. First, repression had to seem normal. Domestic enemies were not hated – they were dehumanized. In the eyes of their countrymen, their souls were emptied of any qualities extraneous to Political Man. They were the imperialist/capitalist running dog/Jew/Trotskyite – and that … Continue reading Critics of Ben = Hitler!!11!

While working for the National Review Online, one: Domenech in NRO: “Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, wriggling countless tentacles and snapping their jaws. They’re known as the Phantoms, alien thingies that, for three decades, have been sucking the life out of the earthlings of “Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within.”” Cox News: “Translucent and glowing, they ooze up from the ground and float through solid walls, splaying their tentacles and snapping their jaws, dripping a discomfiting acidic ooze. They’re known as the Phantoms, otherworldly beings who, for three decades, have been literally … Continue reading It Wasn’t Just College

Ben also owns up to being ‘Augustine’ on the RedState blog. A. Continue reading Box Turtle Ben ‘Apologizes’ for King Comment

So Box Turtle Ben was a serial plagiarist when he worked at his college paper. Why does it matter? He was only 17, or 19, or 21, right? You gonna trash people over what happened in grade school, now, too? All the devil’s advocacy in the world is going to be brought to bear to defend this guy, so it’s important to explain why arguments like this are bullshit. Let me explain something about college newspapers, more specifically, the one I worked for. It wasn’t a fake, toy, pretend thing we did on the side. We worked as hard, if … Continue reading Why It Matters What You Did In College

From Holden:

Helen has Scottie spinning out of orbit over Chimpy’s proclamation of a never-ending occupation of Iraq.

Q At what point did the President decide that during his watch there would be no major withdrawal from Iraq? And what did he —

MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t think that’s what he said.

Q What?

MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t think that’s what he said.

Q Well, he said, future Presidents will have —

MR. McCLELLAN: In fact, a couple of things. First of all, the President was asked a very specific question, when will there be zero or no troops in Iraq. So he was responding to that specific question. But we are already seeing a reduction in our troop levels. Our commanders on the ground — the President has made it very clear repeatedly that our commanders on the ground will make the determinations about our troop levels, based on conditions.

[snip]

Q Well, my point is at what point — I mean, what has been the reaction? The headline was that we were going to stay there well into another presidency, possibly.

MR. McCLELLAN: I don’t write the headlines, and I think it’s wrong for any —

Q This is the impression the President left.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, no —

Q You say no?

MR. McCLELLAN: I disagree. There were some articles that put it in — in some of the coverage — that put it in the full context. If you look at exactly what he said and exactly what he was asked —

Q — future presidencies and new Iraqi —

MR. McCLELLAN: That’s what I’m getting to, Helen. It would be wrong to suggest that he was saying that there would still be a substantial number of troops in Iraq after he is out of office. That’s not what he was asked. That’s not what he was talking about. What he emphasized again was that troop levels will be based on the decisions of our commanders who will look at conditions on the ground.

Q I’m not talking about troop levels. I’m talking about American presence. And we certainly will have troops there, and he certainly indicated that well beyond his own presidency we’d be there.

MR. McCLELLAN: We’re in Afghanistan — we’ve been in Afghanistan since 2001. There’s still troops there, but it’s substantially down from where it was initially.

Obsession continues, click on Read More!

Continue reading “Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle”

From Scout: Rummy may be looking for a Hollywood Director’s gig. Several times in his presser today he gave direction to the cameras. Overall let’s say if reporters are akin to actors then Rummy isn’t exactly an “actor’s director.” And behind his laughter about MoDo I sense a wish of…She’ll never eat lunch in this town again…. Continue reading Donald ‘D.W. Griffith’ Rumsfeld … Action/Cut/ Print It

From Holden: Ken, Ken, Ken. [shakes head] From John Distaso of the Manchester Union Leader: In the days before and after the state Republican Party’s 2002 Election Day phone-jamming scheme, the man who now chairs the Republican National Committee was the White House director of political affairs. And a Democratic-affiliated advocacy group [The Senate Majority Project] says that court records show Ken Mehlman’s office received more than 75 telephone calls from now-convicted phone-jam conspirator James Tobin from Sept. 30 to Nov. 22 of that year. [snip] Former state GOP executive director Chuck McGee admitted masterminding the scheme and served seven … Continue reading Mehlman Tied To Phone Jamming Scandal

From Holden: That’s a Chimpy quote about forgetting the “lessons” of September 11th. So I guess this is fine with him. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of all likely voters agree that if bin Laden is killed or captured, the United States would be safer, 47% say the country would not be safer. Continue reading “And it’s fine that people forget the lessons.”

From Holden: That’s a Chimpy quote about forgetting the “lessons” of September 11th. So I guess this is fine with him. Thirty-seven percent (37%) of all likely voters agree that if bin Laden is killed or captured, the United States would be safer, 47% say the country would not be safer. Continue reading ”And it’s fine that people forget the lessons.”

From Scout: In early February I wrote about corruption by faith based contractors including one Pastor Gary Heldreth of Lighthouse Disaster Relief who received a $5.2 million contract for Katrina disaster relief. Heldreth never did the work but pocketed the $5.2 Million. And the pastor began spending it…… U.S. District Judge James Brady on Monday froze the assets of Lighthouse Disaster Relief and owners Gary Lee Heldreth and Kerry Lynn Farmer one hour after the Department of Justice filed papers claiming the two are “moving money at an alarming pace” — spending it on a motor home and three new … Continue reading Cashing In…Part II

By now, Box Turtle Ben has been pretty well raked over the coals. He’s been exposed as a racist, a misogynist, an all-around ethically-challenged Republican the likes of which we’ve grown only too used to seeing these days. He’s bit the hand that now feeds him and his posts on Red America so far seem to focus exclusively on linking to Malkin. Yeah, ’cause there was a shortage of that in the wingersphere.

But I’d like to focus on an underexamined facet of Young Ben’s career: movie reviewer.

Click on “Read More” for the full story.

Continue reading “Box Turtle Ben Versus The Movies”

From Holden: UPI’s Martin Sieff: Over the past month, the average rate at which U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq has significantly fallen, the but the rates at which they are being wounded have dramatically increased. U.S. mainstream media reports have focused only on the numbers being killed. But over the past eight months, we have repeatedly emphasized in this column that the far larger numbers of U.S. troops wounded, especially those wounded too seriously to return to active duty, represent a far broader and more statistically significant figure of the scale of insurgent activity and the degree to … Continue reading Come You Masters of War

From Holden: From TPM Muckraker: Florida update: Katherine Harris now says she is selling off all her assets and putting those proceeds towards her floundering Senate campaign. Continue reading What’s the Going Rate for Used Breast Implants These Days?

From Holden: I meant to dissect Chimpy’s appearance in Wheeling, West Virginia, yesterday but time got away from me. So let’s launch ourselves into the attrocities. Suprised To Learn That States With More People Got Greater Populations And no state has presented — had more people volunteering to serve than the great state of West Virginia. Now, they’ll say, maybe some states have more people, but they got greater populations. It’s OK To Forget What I’m About To Tell You First of all, I knew that the farther we got away from September the 11th, 2001, the more likely it … Continue reading Your President Speaks!

Mark Helprin, former speechwriter for Bob Dole, contributing editor to the Wall Street Journal, and God’s Personal Novelist, takes a look at Bush’s so-called foreign policy and finds it sorely lacking: And the more Turkey and Pakistan approach the genuine democracy to which American policy would direct them, the more Islamist they will become and the more they will want to do exactly the opposite of what we desire. The more Kuwait democratizes too, the more Islamist it becomes. In the 2003 elections, only 20% of contested seats went to neither traditionalists nor Islamists, and of late the democratically nascent … Continue reading Open Revolt Vol. 896

From Holden: I don’t usually obsess on Little Scottie’s opening statement, but the following lines from this mornings gaggle stuck in my craw. And then following the event, the President will be meeting with two families of fallen soldiers. One is the family of an Army sergeant who recently made the ultimate sacrifice in Iraq; and then the other is the family of a Marine who made the ultimate sacrifice a couple of years ago in Iraq. Scottie can’t say “dead”, but instead uses “fallen”. He can’t say “died” or “killed”, he says “made the ultimate sacrifice”. Does he carry … Continue reading Today on Holden’s Obsession with the Gaggle

From Holden: Via Froomkin: Richard Johnson writes in the New York Post: “First Lady Laura Bush gave birth to twin daughters Jenna and Barbara only after taking powerful fertility drugs, according to a major new book. In ‘Laura Bush: An Intimate Portrait of the First Lady’ (Random House), best-selling author Ronald Kessler reports that, after trying for more than three years to have children after she married George W. Bush, Laura took clomiphene citrate, which induces ovulation and helps increase egg production and often leads to multiple births. I really want to know. Abortion is bad, birth control is bad, … Continue reading How Will This Sit With The Fundies?

From Holden: Uh-oh. The US is exporting terrorism again. We better fight us over here so we don’t have to fight us over there. Or something. Bombs exploded inside two low-budget hotels in Bolivia’s capital overnight, killing two people and wounding seven, police said Wednesday. An American was among those arrested. The explosions occurred Tuesday night and early Wednesday in the historic city center. Police commander Oscar Nina said it was ”a case typical of terrorist crime.” Continue reading An American Terrorist Abroad

The messenger shoots back: Cal Thomas, you’ve made me mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore. I’m tired of hearing radical columnists like you besmirch the good men and women who struggle daily to put out the very best newspaper they can. Once again you’ve trotted out that stale cliche that newspapers like mine are undermined by what you claim is a liberal bias. I know I can’t change your mind. But I’ll be doggone if I’m going to let your slander of my colleagues go unchallenged anymore. Good on John Winn Miller. I don’t agree … Continue reading Department of About Damn Time

From Holden: Come hurricane season we are seriously fucked. Again. Non-deployed Guard units have just 5 percent of the lightweight rifles and 14 percent of the machine guns they are authorized to have. Units nationwide have just 8 percent of the flatbed semi-trailers they are authorized to have and 10 percent of the Humvees. And despite the fact the Guard likely would be the first force to respond to a terrorist attack, which many experts fear could involve the use of chemical or biological weapons, its units have only 14 percent of their authorized chemical decontamination equipment and virtually none … Continue reading The Stripped-Down Guard

From Holden: Congress may not be interested in doing its job by investigating Chimpy’s illegal eavesdropping, but we still have the courts. The company that publishes the Oregonian newspaper in Portland has filed a motion in U.S. District Court in Oregon to unseal documents in a pending case that alleges the Bush administration illegally intercepted international phone conversations between the codirector of an Islamic charity and his two lawyers in the United States. In a motion filed Friday, lawyers for the Oregonian Publishing Co. argued that it is in the public interest to know the contents of documents that could … Continue reading Chimp In A Corner

From Holden: I don’t know about your local paper, but the bold, above-the-fold headline in mine reads US Troops To Stay Through Bush Term, with a sub-head reading President Says Future Leaders Will Decide When To Leave Iraq. That can’t be the message they wanted coming out of yesterday’s presser. Ken Mehlman is gonna plotz. Continue reading Headlines